


boston market

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Fluff & Angst, Gen, Mashed Potatoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: batman & robin enjoy a mid-patrol snack.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92
Collections: The very best of Stephanie Brown works





	boston market

The Boston Market on the east side of Gotham is open all night in the winter. As an establishment boasting of family meals and comfort food, the managers decided some time ago that as a thank-you for the hard work certain people put into the city, they would stay open when it was cold and people up late might be wanting some warm food. 

Anyway, Batman knows this and has known this, and he remembers how excited Dick was when the eastern Boston Market announced their new schedule, and so he’s not exactly surprised when Robin returns after half an hour patrolling by herself carrying Boston Market takeout, but it’s still a little startling. 

“What’s this?” Batman asks when she settles down next to him. It’s a quiet night and this stakeout isn’t supposed to yield any action for a few more hours. He’s been stealing sips of gatorade from his bat-thermos, but as Robin digs out a pair of takeout boxes he realizes just how welcome some food would be. 

“Mashed potatoes!” she says, handing him one box as well as a plastic spork. She pries open the lid of her own mashed potatoes and sticks her spork in the potatoes, setting it on her lap and sticking her head back in the bag. “Say, do you want some butter? Gravy?”

“Sure,” he says, a little bewildered, and she emerges with packets of butter and a cup of gravy and passes them over, keeping some butters for herself. When he’s done emptying one butter packet over his potatoes and half of the gravy, he puts the rest of the butters on the roof between them. She scoops them up and slides them into her belt. 

“You never know when you might need some butter,” Robin says as if bestowing crucial advice, and Batman ducks his head to hide his smile, reaching for his first bite. The potatoes are still hot, and obviously not as good as Alfred’s, but Batman finds himself enjoying them anyway. Alfred only makes them for Thanksgiving, so Batman hasn’t had any mashed potatoes in nearly a year.

“I  _ love  _ mashed potatoes,” Robin says after she swallows her first mouthful. Batman isn’t sure what to say so he says nothing, instead taking another bite of his potatoes and watching her blow on her sporkful of mostly butter before taking another bite. 

They’re crouched on a small ledge, halfway up a building, and Robin readjusts so she’s sitting down, her legs dangling over the edge, and she kicks them back and forth. Batman follows suit--not because he was cramping from squatting for so long, but because eating whilst in a squat is weird, okay, Batman doesn’t  _ get  _ cramps. He doesn’t kick his legs, though. 

Robin hums happily as she digs in. Batman identifies the song as from the musical  _ Wicked.  _ He doesn’t say that he knows that. 

He casts glances out at the alley below them, even though at Robin’s arrival he put down his binoculars (bat-noculars, Dick called them) and can’t see much from this high up. Nothing  _ looks  _ different, and Batman knows that even from this high up if anything was actually happening he would be able to tell. He looks at Robin, who has stopped humming. She’s looking at him, her mouth twisted in an unidentifiable line, eyes hidden behind her mask. 

“You do...do you like them?” she asks, hesitant, and Batman takes another hurried bite of potato. He nearly burns his mouth. 

“Yes,” he says after he swallows. “Thank you.”

The worried line turns into a bright smile, her braces flashing, and she turns back to her own potatoes. The portions are small--probably intended as side-dishes, but for a late night mid-patrol snack, they are perfect. Batman finishes his up in neat bites (it wouldn’t do to spill potato on the batsuit) and reaches for his bat-thermos, unscrewing it and drinking deeply. He offers some to Robin without thinking, and she wrinkles her nose. 

“Yellow gatorade and mashed potatoes? No  _ thank  _ you,” she says, and instead she reaches for her own thermos, clipped to her belt, which Batman thinks has water in it. 

He’s proved right when after a deep drink she offers it to him. “Water?” 

He shakes his head, clips his thermos back to his belt. He extracts the Boston Market bag from under Robin’s leg and gathers the trash. After a few minutes, when the potatoes have settled, he’ll either go and throw it away or he’ll ask Robin to. 

He’ll do it, he decides, watching Robin tuck her legs up and get on her stomach, getting out her binoculars to peer at the alley below. He needs to stretch his muscles and he trusts her to watch the alley for a few minutes while he’s gone. 

He tells her his decision and she stares at him, mouth in a little O, and he leaves. There’s a dumpster a block away, and he does a quick lap after dropping off the bag. He returns to the ledge after ten minutes. 

“Thank you for the potatoes,” he says. She grins, lifting her head slightly to tilt it towards him. 

“Thank you for eating them,” she says. “I half thought you were gonna throw them at some perp.” Her voice drops into a growly mimic of his own. “ _ I am Batman, I don’t eat on patrol. Eat potato, crime man!”  _ She mimes throwing something at someone, and then an explosion. 

“I don’t waste food,” he says, and she stifles a giggle before looking back down at the alley. Batman settles into a crouch and makes a note to invite her and her mother to the manor for Thanksgiving. She’d like Alfred’s mashed potatoes, he thinks, and he lifts up his binoculars to look down at the alley below them, smiling to himself. 

\---

“Have you eaten?” a voice asks, and Bruce half-turns his chair towards the door. Dick is standing there, looking concerned. Bruce can’t bring himself to care. 

For a long moment, nobody says anything. Dick coughs into his fist. 

“Right,” he says. “Well. Tim told me he was going to pick up some Boston Market on the way back. Do you want something? I’m getting chicken pot pie.”

Bruce tries to think of a response, and can’t find one.

“Bruce,” Dick says. 

“What’s the point?” Bruce says. “ _ She _ can’t eat anything.”

“ _ She _ would want you to eat,” Dick says. “Come on, B.”

Bruce ignores the very true fact that she would certainly want him to eat, and definitely would want it to be Boston Market. 

“No,” he says. Dick sighs sadly and leaves. Bruce assumes there will be another attempt later, but he doesn’t care. He swivels his chair around and stares at nothing. 

No, he doesn’t want any  _ fucking  _ Boston Market. He doesn’t want to eat anything, let alone  _ Boston Market.  _ What’s the point of eating at Boston Market if Stephanie’s not there? What’s the point if Stephanie will never get to eat, ever again? 

He closes his eyes and thinks that maybe he’ll cry, but tears don’t come. Nobody comes and bothers him for the rest of the day, but Bruce sees the Boston Market bag in the trashcan, anyway. 

He picks up the entire trashcan, throws it away, and bans his family from going back there. When Dick and Tim ask why, he doesn’t answer. He can’t think of the words.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments & kudos always appreciated :)


End file.
